Just Mary (7 page)

I had another chance to reap the benefits of my ‘carpe diem’ mantra one Sunday afternoon in January 1983, in what I would realise later was to be a defining moment
in my career in politics. In the early days of the New Year, Charlie Haughey as our leader had undergone another ‘heave’ and had won through once more. The next step for him was to
choose his Shadow Cabinet. Anyway, it was a Sunday afternoon and I was at home when the telephone rang. I had been cooking the lunch, while Enda read the Sunday papers; the boys were out at
football or rowing or some other sport. We had that most modern of marvels — or so it was in those days — an extension from the hall telephone to the kitchen. So I picked up the phone
and took the call in the kitchen. ‘Hello,’ I said, ‘Yes, it is Mary O’Rourke. Oh, hello, Mr Haughey, good afternoon.’ (Needless to say at that stage, as a greenhorn in
the Dáil, I always addressed him as Mr Haughey.) I knew that Enda could hear me and could imagine him cocking his ears to listen at this point, but obviously only my side of the conversation
was audible to him.

In any case, Charlie Haughey it was, and he said to me, ‘Tomorrow I am forming my Shadow Cabinet and I want you up here for 11 a.m. — I am going to make you Shadow Minister for
Women’s Affairs.’

Without giving it a second thought, I responded immediately, ‘Thank you for the offer. But I don’t want to be Minister for Women’s Affairs.’

‘Oh! And why not?’ he said.

‘Of course, I think Nuala Fennell’ — Nuala was Fine Gael’s Cabinet Minister for Women’s Affairs at the time; she and I had befriended each other back in the 1970s
— ‘a very fine woman. But I don’t want to be put in a cupboard, with “Women’s Affairs” on a label on the door and to only get out whenever there are
women’s affairs to be discussed. I will always be discussing women’s affairs, because I am interested in them and I am a woman — but I don’t want to be pigeon-holed like
that.’

‘Oh, I see Missy,’ said Haughey after a pause, ‘Particular, aren’t you?’ And with that, he put down the phone.

Enda had gathered enough from what I was saying to deduce that I had somehow turned down the Taoiseach and, coming into the kitchen, he said, ‘Well that’s you f***ed then — you
won’t get another offer now, I can tell you!’ So anyway time went on and we continued with our day, eating our lunch whenever the boys came back from their game and doing the usual
Sunday things.

About three hours later, the telephone rang once more and it was Charlie Haughey again. ‘Shadow Minister for Education, opposite Gemma Hussey, okay? Be in by eleven in the morning.’
So there it was, I had been bold — but it wasn’t until sometime later, when I had more experience in the Dáil that I fully realised just how bold I had been. To this day,
whenever I think about or relate that incident, I still do not know from what part of my soul, mind or body I dredged up the idea and the audacity of that initial reply I made to Charlie Haughey on
the Sunday afternoon in question. Yet wherever it came from, I did it and of course it shaped my life thereafter. It was an imaginative strike and one that I never regretted, as of course from then
on, especially once I was appointed Minister for Education, my career took off in a big way. Once again, I see this story as an example of the importance of ‘carpe diem’, and as
indicative of the way in which he who seizes the day can in fact win the day.

So there I was, duly elected as a td for Longford–Westmeath, full of hope and bounce and so much looking forward to my work in Dáil Éireann. I went on to act as Shadow
Minister for Education for four-and-a-half years. It was very hard work. We would meet at 11 a.m. every Tuesday. Charlie was every bit as rigorous with his Shadow Cabinet as if it were a real
Cabinet. There is no doubt that Haughey expected you to work as hard as if you were a Minister in government. I really revelled in the work, however. I enjoyed shadowing Gemma Hussey, a very
pleasant woman, with whom I have maintained warm relations and indeed a friendship throughout the years. No doubt I made her life hell on occasion, as she did mine at times too. But I like to think
that we both played the game as it then was, within the limits — she as a full-blooded Minister and me as a full-blooded Shadow Minister.

In February 1987 the coalition of Fine Gael (under Garret FitzGerald) and Labour came to an end in a messy way. Now blessed Garret in retrospect often liked to represent this
parting of the ways as a very amicable one, insisting that they all remained great friends even as they fell out. Perhaps it was the case, but what they presented to the public seemed more like a
rather acrimonious adieu, as Labour pulled out over very necessary and indeed long overdue spending cuts.

Meanwhile, Fianna Fáil returned three out of four
TDS
in Longford–Westmeath: Albert Reynolds, Henry Abbott and myself. There had been a hugely entertaining
incident involving Albert Reynolds and me, which indeed he has delineated skilfully in his autobiography and which has gone down in political folklore as ‘the Battle of Tang’. Tang is a
small village on the borders of Westmeath and Longford, but technically it was part of my area for canvassing and garnering the vote. On the last Sunday before the General Election of February
1987, however, Albert and his cohort of followers decided they were going to speak outside Tang Church after morning Mass. Since my team and I had exactly the same plan, it seemed that we were set
for an almighty stand-off. I arrived at the church with my truck, my guys and my microphone. Shortly afterwards, Albert arrived with his truck, his guys and his microphone. We knew that the priest
was nearing completion in the church because we had a scout going inside and keeping us informed. But we had no idea what was going to happen next — whether or not we were just going to go
head-to-head and drown one another out, or whether someone would back down at the last moment. In the end, we both stepped back from the brink and agreed to stage a united front by addressing the
church crowd from the same truck. Fortunately, we got a great reception from those assembled! I can’t even remember now who got the most votes from Tang, but I know I was happy with the
overall outcome and no doubt Albert was too.

While in that election, things in my part of the country had panned out very well for Fianna Fáil, it looked very uncertain as to whether we would win the day and Charlie Haughey would be
returned as Taoiseach. The party had undoubtedly lost some important seats — a year earlier, Des O’Malley, Bobby Molloy and Mary Harney had left Fianna Fáil to set up the
Progressive Democratic Party (the
PDS
), and of course that had affected the Fianna Fáil vote in some areas. But Charlie fought a great campaign. We had all of our
position papers at the ready and a series of huge billboards in place in a timely fashion in the key locations. It was an election of the old style: Charlie barnstorming around the country; church
gate meetings; intense canvassing day-by-day, night-by-night. Ultimately we emerged triumphant.

I had high hopes of being offered the job of Gemma Hussey, whom I had of course been opposite for over four years as Shadow Minister for Education. I knew very well, however, that I was still a
rookie member of the Dáil and that there were many more in the pecking order ahead of me — but still, I had my dreams. The intervening weeks between the results of the election and the
recalling of the Dáil were tense, with many forecasts in the papers and the media in general as to who would wear the crowns of Cabinet. One afternoon during this period, I was at work at my
desk when I received a telephone call from Charlie Haughey’s Private Secretary, Catherine Butler, inviting me to come over to see him. With my heart thumping, I duly made my way over and was
ushered into Charlie’s office. As always, he came straight to the point and offered me the post of Minister for Education. I could not believe my ears! However, my excitement was quickly
tempered when Mr Haughey said to me, ‘Now, I don’t know if I am going to be appointed Taoiseach at all. It all depends on a few important Independent votes and in the main, it depends
on Tony Gregory.’ So whilst I had been offered the prize, I did not know if I would ever hold it.

On the fateful day of decision, we all filed into Dáil Éireann, where the usual spats began and the arguments raged back and forth. At the end of it all, Charlie Haughey emerged
triumphant as Taoiseach, elected by Neil Blaney and Tony Gregory, with the casting vote of the Ceann Comhairle, Seán Treacy, the then Independent
TD
from Tipperary.
So Fianna Fáil was in government — albeit a minority government, with Alan Dukes as leader of Fine Gael pledging to support us on condition that we adhered to a stringent financial
path — the Tallaght Strategy — the one that he had wished to follow but had been deterred from by the Labour Party under the coalition government of the previous four years.

So we were off! That night, we went up to Áras an Uachtaráin and got our seals of office from the then President, Patrick Hillery, and again I was quite awestruck. My brother,
Brian Lenihan, was also in government as Minister for Foreign Affairs, and it was noted that we were the first brother and sister ever to serve in Cabinet together. Such considerations were not at
the forefront of my mind, to be honest. I had earlier gone over to the Department of Education in Marlborough Street, where the then Secretary, Declan Brennan, was waiting to greet me in the hall.
I had to keep pinching myself to be able to believe that this was really happening — that I was now the Minister for Education.

Declan Brennan was a great, open, talkative man, very well regarded in civil service circles, and he and I were to chart our course together for the next few years in good tempo with one
another. He brought me upstairs to my new office, and one by one, showed in the Assistant Secretaries to the Department of Education: the person in charge of Higher Education, the Secretary for
Secondary Level Education, the person in charge of Primary, and so on and so forth. I thought they would never stop coming in and I remember saying to myself, how on earth will I remember all their
names — how will I ever get to know them? But I kept my counsel, listened to everything and tried to remember as much as I could.

It must not be forgotten: I had never served in government before. I had never been through the portals of a Department before. I was from rural Ireland, albeit brought up in a political family
and having won my spurs at two General Elections. I was finding it very hard to believe that I was now responsible for what I regarded and continue to regard as the most important portfolio in
government. Each Assistant Secretary who came in presented me with a file giving me the details of the section of the Department of Education he (and they were all male) was responsible for: the
facts, the figures and particularly the gloomy forecasts. These formidable files were piled up one after another on my desk and afterwards, I was left mulling over them, wondering how I was ever
going to absorb all of the information in them.

That night, after the presentation of our seals of office, we had a brief Cabinet meeting in a stateroom of Áras an Uachtaráin, as is the custom. We were immediately told by the
Taoiseach that we were facing into a very stringent financial situation. The spending Ministries — Health, Education and Social Welfare — were to be the most keenly targeted, Haughey
asserted, and he concluded with an ominous warning, which I remember to this day: ‘There will be blood on the carpets. It’s going to be a tough time, folks, and if you don’t like
the heat, you’ll have to get out of the kitchen.’ I was just so junior, so untried, so green-horned, so naïve that I can tell you, I kept quiet at that initial meeting. On this
particular occasion, it didn’t seem like the time to put my usual rule of speaking up quickly into practice! I went back to my apartment that night, exhilarated and daunted at the same time,
with my mind in a jumble. I felt that in what I had managed to achieve, Athlone had got its just reward. I felt proud and still very much overawed by what had been bestowed upon me.

However, grim reality was to set in very soon. In the period that followed, we had a series of further Cabinet meetings, day after day, each one laden with what seemed like increasingly dire
financial news. Ray MacSharry of Sligo (‘Mac the Knife’, as he would soon become known) had been appointed Minister for Finance and it was clear from the off that he meant serious
business. Each Minister was issued with a file containing details of the cuts which the Department of Finance wished to impose upon their respective Departments, along with more dire forecasts.
Over a period of two to three weeks thereafter, a series of strong cutbacks were to be imposed immediately, over which really and truly we didn’t have much choice: they were presented to us
as a
fait accompli
. Of course you made your case against them as you could, but because the task was so huge and the time so short, neither Ray MacSharry nor Charlie Haughey listened to my
bleatings or indeed to the bleatings of any of the other Ministers around the Cabinet table. I remember as a comic interlude one occasion on which Finance put forward the proposal that all trains
for the West of Ireland should cease at Athlone!

During that time as Ministers for Health and Education, Dr Rory O’Hanlon and I were soldiers-in-arms together. We were in charge of two of the biggest spending Ministries and we were left
in no doubt that these were where the financial axe was going to fall. Anyone who remembers Ireland in the late 1980s will recall that what is happening in cutbacks these days is mild compared to
the hair shirts imposed upon all of us as Ministers by Mac the Knife. Intellectually, I knew that what we were embarking on was proper and correct if the country was to be saved from financial
ruin, but another part of me registered that these cuts were going to be in my Department and that I as Minister would be held responsible for them, so you can imagine how I felt. As a former
teacher, I knew the lingo and was all too aware of what these strictures from the Department of Finance would really mean in terms of teacher numbers, curriculum choices and overcrowded classrooms.
So it was too for my colleague Rory O’Hanlon in Health. In a way, perhaps it wasn’t such a good idea, putting a doctor in charge of the Department of Health and a teacher in charge of
the Department of Education. We knew what the outcome would be. We could see only too well the forthcoming social, trade union, patient and parental unrest and what would unfold for us from this.
But we had no choice but to put our noses to the grindstone and focus on day-to-day efforts at Cabinet to make our respective cases.